Run Away
by Tin-Can-Hit-man
Summary: Complete shenanigans, read only if you're bored. I'm expecting flames because it really is horrid, but, honestly, I don't care XD


The interior was clearly designed for comfort. The chairs did that deeply unsettling automated contour thing that David Fenway found he couldn't do without, and there was an automated cold vanilla default scent that made the sinuses instantly spring alive.

And yet there wasn't comfort.

There was only the hiss, smooth and calm and constant . . . A feedback loop of white noise, punctuated now and then by the steady rhythm of the tachometer. Outside, receding into space, the world split in two beyond the glass; the white horizon of a white dwarf sinking off into the distance, the star-pocked space surrounding it, smooth and knife-sharp and endless.

Lights?

The interior dimmed, and Fenway could just make out the glow — it was there this time, tangible . . . He didn't even need the nav controls now, it was all visual, a ghostly neon glow a thousand miles distant, growing with a sure and real intensity.

There was no mistake.

Was there a mistake?

He checked the fuel systems, the lubrication ducts, the ocular feeds — they were all clean; all perfectly within perfectly standard perfect limits. He checked the pylons, ran the scans . . . the quick ones, the slow one — all normal.

He ran them again.

And again.

Normal.

And there it was, suddenly. The faintest pricklings of relief began to take hold and wind their way up his spine, and he allowed himself a small, tiny exhale. He leaned back in the chair and pinched the bridge of his nose. Even if they left a minute after he had — hell, less — they didn't have anything that could catch him at this speed, not here. And they'd noticed . . . It had gone out on the channel, anyway . . . a full _14 and a half minutes later_.

He squinted.

There was a pair of legs curled up for him out there, in that mess of sodden phosphorescence. She'd wrap them around his and complain that they were too rough, and he'd turn on the air conditioning and it would wash over them and she'd complain about that and he'd laugh and tell her to put on a blanket. And they'd raid the little refrigerated hotel vendor for tiny bottles of rum and chocolate bars, and they'd make ridiculous promises to each other and in the early afternoon they'd have pancakes with obscene amounts of butter.

He stared at the glow and listened to the hiss and his eyes got soft.

Hissssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssss s

_*klik*_

*_The exact trajectory of your life was calculated in the birth of the universe. You know that?_*

_*klik*_

The voice on the comm was congenial.

He'd disabled it! Hadn't he?

Numb hands.

Sweat.

_*klik*_

*_I mean, most people do, if they think about it. Most people who aren't even — you know . . . mathematically inclined. If they think about it, anyway. Just a single infinitesimal adjustment at the first spark and you would have survived this encounter with 100% certainty. Be nothing I could do about it. But the math . . . you a math man, Fenway?_*

_*klik*_

"G . . . go to hell."

_*klik*_

*_Didn't figure on it. Music of the universe, pal. You're missing one hell of a rodeo. Hell, I'd just bore you, I guess. Things you don't really understand or care about just sort of do that thing where they blend into the background and then you ignore them. I know.*_

*I think that it's important that you know that I am not the great destroyer, here. I've talked with you, Fenway. I don't like you much — you kind of have a peckerwood way about you — but I don't see any reason why if the Big Math hadn't gone a little different we wouldn't be sipping fingers of whiskey out on my back porch about now._ *___

*Unfortunately . . . and this pains me most every day, Fenway . . ._ *___

*. . . there's only one way to properly deal a stacked deck.*__

*klik*__

"Fuck you! Fuck your bullshit!"

He'd checked everything. He had. He'd checked everything checked it again all checked out everything checked out

_*klik*___

*I will admit, however, that it's a rather gross and dramatic over-simplification. Hell, though — that's what I guess we all base our lives on, basically. Take that vehicle you're sliding along. You know what you're doing. And you're paranoid enough not to make the silly fuckups that sour these types of situations. FTL Drives, disabled. GRAW, disabled. Triangulation . . . well, we're getting something off you, but nothing more than a bunch of bouncing gibbers and the like, so you must have given the underfins a good boot before you hopped in. And if that thing you're sitting in were factory stock, you'd hit border smooth and clean and we'd probably have to pink slip a few fellas over you._*___

*klik*

"Hell, I'm gonna…"

_*klik*___

!I won? Belabor this thing, here. You got that thing from our motor pool, We've got all the cards. You've got no blowback, no brakes. Maybe Bill says you do, but you don't. And I've done the math for you. Right now you've got about a solid minute to figure out what you're gonna do . . . you can cut power and coast, and we bring you back, or you can ram right into Easy dock and spread yourself all over the dash.*__

Sorry, son.__

*klik*


End file.
